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back to article Tom Ridge: Private sector lagging in cybersecurity

Poor communications, weak management and a lack of communications with government agencies is leaving many large enterprises vulnerable to targeted cyberattacks, according to former US Homeland Security boss Tom Ridge. Speaking at a press event in San Francisco, Ridge said that the growth in security threats targeting …

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  1. oolor

    This actually makes sense. Though the government isn't exactly the bastion of good security practices either. They seem to mistake the ability to see all info in transit for actually doing something about human practices within the organization orders of magnitude beyond the private world. Plus ca change...

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  2. Rule of Thumb

    The warfighters...

    I believe the actual quote was like this:

    "The warfighters are presently laser-focused on the risk associated with the cyber world," Ridge said. "I dare say that no one could steal hundreds of classified military docu... Manning? ... Really? ... Well, the NSA files are secur... Snowden? Russia!? ... As I was saying, the warfighters are for shit and I guess private enterprise is actually doing OK."

    Kidding aside, this is the most vacuous El Reg article I've read in a while. Slow news day?

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    1. JCitizen
      Reply Icon
      Facepalm

      Re: The warfighters...

      The stupid US press apparently dreamed that term up. I call them soldiers no matter which branch they come from!

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    2. FormerKowloonTonger
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      IT Angle

      Re: The warfighters...

      Tom Ridge is making good sense, but he's being uncharacteristically naive in even thinking that there can be even the merest crumbs of shared security information volunteered by those smug folks out there in the peoples' republic of california who belittle all efforts of anyone waaaay back East in Washington having anything to do with their physical, much less, cyber security. They out there in california simply know all that there is to be known.

      This is apparently shown by the "it's not my problem" attitude indicated by the two year lapse of the Bleedingheart affaire where HAL 2014 is out of control, but the august I.T. moguls in california point their fingers elsewhere, even though the human error causing this fiasco was manfully admitted by that German guy. There is no "how can I help?" from I.T. in california which is a separate galaxy.

      There needs to be less insular thinking all around, but Glasnost from the I.T. folks is not something they "do", it's for all others to "do". The allocation of funds for mutual security along with the suggestion that profits will be nibbled at is out of the question. It's not their problem out there in california. So they think.

      Then, the likes of this Bleedingheart shit hits the fan and it's blown all over the place, and great wails and shrieks of "WTF!" are heard in the land.

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  3. cd

    WTF is a warfighter? Was there something wrong with saying military?

    Simpleton Bush language still smouldering out there.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      wasn't warfighter the name of a really bad medal of honor game?

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      1. frank ly
        Reply Icon

        and ....

        ... lasers produce a collimated beam, they are not focused.

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        1. Tom 13
          Reply Icon

          Re: and ....

          Lasers can be focused and with rather interesting results. The office of my college prof for light and sound was filled with examples of the results.

          Also, compared to an uncollimated beam, they are focused. So while "collimated" may be preferred, focused is acceptable.

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      2. asdf
        Reply Icon

        >wasn't warfighter the name of a really bad medal of honor game?

        One so bad that it not only killed the franchise but it killed the studio who made it.

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    2. asdf
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Up

      haha

      >Simpleton Bush language still smouldering out there

      I nominated for QoTW.

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    3. Someone Else Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Alert

      @cd

      Don't you recognize Newspeak when you see it?

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    4. FormerKowloonTonger
      Reply Icon
      Linux

      Adolescent snarks still smoldering out there while fondling their gamer joysticks.

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  4. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Big Brother

    "Warfighters"? Faggot (in the nongay sense) detected!

    Poor communications, weak management and a lack of communications with government agencies is leaving many large enterprises vulnerable to targeted cyberattacks, according to former US Homeland Security boss Tom Ridge.

    This coming from a full-on eejit who survives by spending the evenings on the cocktail circuit and who then goes on to compare people who have to actually work for their money (yeah, this is still done in the century of "Quantitative Easing Infinity" - isn't that amazing!) with a sector of the "economy" that extracts money -- by hook or by crook -- from the people who have to perform said meaningful economic activity and that then doesn't manage to secure anything, much less manages to prevent anything, doesn't know how much it costs, couldn't add the figures if it knew, and generally produces only a diarrhea of "papers" and "laws" exhorting and forcing other people to do what it thinks is good for them (and assumes that all of that has zero cost anyway).

    Yes it is that bad.

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    1. asdf
      Reply Icon

      Re: "Warfighters"? Faggot (in the nongay sense) detected!

      Sadly this is usually the one function (warfighting) of government even many on the right defend the most.

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  5. JCitizen
    Devil

    Yeah right!

    I wouldn't exactly be bragging about Homeland Security either! As far as that goes the whole US gubbmint has it noggin up its caboose!

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Private sector lagging because...

    ...we keep exploitable vulnerabilities like Open-SSL for ourselves...

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  7. Irongut

    "Among the most glaring holes, says Ridge, remains the gap that exists between government agencies and the private sector in regards to sharing data."

    Ah now I get it, the NSA were just slurping all our data in order to tell us how to better protect ourselves online. They're the good guys after all.

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  8. Someone Else Silver badge
    FAIL

    Among the most glaring holes, says Ridge, remains the gap that exists between government agencies and the private sector in regards to sharing data.

    Words just fail....

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  9. int21h

    1> Poor communications

    2> Speaking at a press event in San Francisco

    "The warfighters are presently laser-focused on the risk associated with the cyber world," Ridge.

    Lets have some BRUTAL Honesty whilst we're at it... The UNIX name server Bind is a Security Hazard go look at the CERTS for it. UNIX Sendmail is Crap go look at the CERTS for it. X11 is bloat-ware complete with back-doors go look at the CERTS for that. Now go away and stop putting it on all your servers and machines and figure out where you went wrong before you hire outside corperations that have no interest in fixing there own buggy rubbish!

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